FCPyF

NB – The FCPyF has been rebuilt to a new design. This page is retained only as an archive. An up to date description of the layout is available here.

The Cheshire Railway Modellers On30 modular layout, Ferrocarril Internacional, was once up to 40ft long with sections owned at various times by five members of the group as shown in this link, but we have gone our separate ways and my sections of the layout have been renamed.

“The Pampas de Fernandez Consolidated Railway is not in fact consolidated, given the huge mountain range between the two places it was supposed to connect.” – Captain Hastings.

Sounds unreal? It is. The quotation comes from an episode of Agatha Christie’s Poirot.

Like its television namesake the FCPyF is not actually consolidated but is a series of eight individual scenes, each showing a different location on the railway. Four of these are connected to create the main line and the others are operated independently of each other, yet all share the same theme. I’ve not followed the title from Poirot to the letter, my translation being Pampas and Fernandez instead of Pampas of Fernandez. However, it’s still close enough to be a hat tip to the great authoress.

Rio Paleta was originally built by Nick Palette for the CRM’s OO modular layout but was adapted by me for On30 use as part of the Ferrocarril Internacional.

The real Frog Rock is not in South America, nor is it on a 2’6″ gauge railway. The tiny halt is part of the Weka Pass Railway in New Zealand.

Resurrección and Jones River (as originally built)

Resurrección was so named because it re-used the baseboard from Asilo, one of the Ferrocarril Internacional modules, and Jones River is named after a friend who passed away in 2013. The bridge is part of his collection, kindly given to me by his partner. Much of Andy’s collection was used to make Princes Road for my son.

Jones River and Resurrección originally formed a single scene with the link section between them suitably disguised but have been split into two separate scenes to enable the layout to be reassembled in a new formation. Resurrección, now with a lot more trees than it originally had, appears at the top of this page and the new Jones River module is combined with a small mining scene and the zigzags on the upper level of the layout to form a large mountainous area. Currently (2015) under construction.

Jones River (above) includes a hidden siding, representing the San Pedro branch, in the tunnel underneath The Mine. The train is descending on the top level of the zigzags (below) and will reverse down the middle level after reaching the end of the headshunt above the mine.

Also on the upper level is the branch terminus serving Puerto del Sastra. The FCPyF connects here with a lake ferry, which in turn connects with cross border trains to Chile.

Puerto del Sastra (under construction).

The upper level of the layout has its own fiddleyard between the two scenic sections. Puerto is only served by the FCPyF’s smaller locos but freight traffic can be exchanged (via the south fiddleyard) to give the impression of through workings with the main line on the lower level.

With the exception of Frog Rock all the places modelled, including the country of Sierra Oculta in which they are supposedly located, are imaginary.

If pushed to explain this version of the South American map it might be that Sierra Oculta was formed as a neutral buffer zone between Peru, Bolivia and Chile after the War of the Pacific in the 1880s. Or it might be just a very long way away and a question best left unanswered.

Cuarto Sheds (below) is supposedly at the southern end of the line, Cuarto de Pulgada, near the Argentinian border. I’m building this diorama for storing models that I’m currently working on.

The final (for now) scene is San Fernandez Terminus, this is the north end of the FCPyF where passengers can make international connections to Peru.

Both San Fernandez Terminus and Cuarto Sheds are adaptations of Jack Trollope’s simple but effective “Shortover Yard” track plan.

Frog Rock and Rio Paleta (along with the now dismantled Taylors Port, Perejil, Ciudad Grande and Asilo) were last exhibited in Huddersfield, January 2013 as part of the Ferrocarril Internacional with Brian Mosby’s Forks Trestle, Railroad Avenue and Windchill Curve modules completing the layout.